Choose it or lose it

This seems to be the week of the warriors.
It seems that many of of my clients are struggling to make choices around conflicts at work.
I can imagine you, too, have been in a situation where there is a conflict with another colleague or your boss, or even a customer. In many cases, a conflict goes on for a while and ends up feeling like there is no end. You have tried to suggest solutions but have not been supported. So now the choice you must make, is between sticking up for yourself, or sticking to the status quo in the office.

Making choices is a tough one. When we make a choice, we exercise our freedom. Erich Fromm writes about how our fear of freedom causes us to try to hedge our bets, keep our options open and avoid making decisions that could, ultimately, improve our lives. He observed that embracing our freedom and exercising will power is healthy, whereas escaping is the root of many psychological conflicts. The main conflicts you can find yourself in are related to your attempt to escape from your own freedom. If you choose to escape, you end up with the conflicts of conformity, authoritarianism, and destructiveness.

In the conflict situation we are talking about here, it may feel easier to try to keep your head down. However, you are conforming at great cost to yourself. By avoiding a conflict that has clearly arisen, your are on a path of self-destructiveness, because in conforming you are no longer supporting yourself from a place of your own power. You are giving your authority to others. By not taking responsibility for your own needs, others will take an increasingly authoritarian stance, and the unconscious compulsion for others to control you will be aggravated over time.

How is this possible?
In this conflict situation, choosing to 'put yourself away' means you no longer have any control over how you influence others, and how others see you.
Result? Even if you've made yourself small and you try to just 'ignore' the negative atmosphere, two things will happen:
1. you will eat yourself up inside and become explosively emotional at the most inopportune moments because you have repressed your own needs, and your anger at the situation;
2. your colleagues will get no feedback on their negative behavior, and so take more and more of your space. The conflict with then get worse and worse. They may just end up scapegoating you. That is, when other things go wrong that have ostensibly nothing to do with you, they may decide its all your fault and start to gossip about you in the rest of the company. Since you have never defended yourself before, they may just get away with it. Ouch.

So what to do?
My view is that the viscious cycle of "conforming -- self-destruction --authoritarianism" is one that, as a professional, you need to remain aware of. Make it a top priority to deal with it every day. Head on. With courage and persistence. For yourself.

Ask yourself: What if the conflict dynamic continues for another 3 months? How long can you keep your mouth shut? Even if you end up quitting over this, or change departments, what happens if you get a fresh set of colleagues who are doing the same thing?

If you allow yourself to get caught in the viscious cycle, you are guaranteed to lose. There is nothing to lose from extricating yourself from the viscious circle, and in my experience it is definitely worth trying. With the realisation that there's no easy solution for this behavior.

What are steps to take?
1. Remind yourself of your own personal values. Respect. Integrity. Diligence. Creativity. Whichever values you have chosen as the basis for your personal and professional life (these are the same!) See my earlier blog on this topic for some help with this.
2. During the day, stay in touch with your most important colleague: yourself. Trust yourself above all else.
3. From a place of inner power, you can practice at consciously (rather than reactively) chosing to give up some of your power -- to customers, managers, colleagues, partners, whoever! -- some of the time, as well as going for a clear gain and explicit support on things that you need from your colleagues. These you must negotiate for yourself. No one else will give them to you.
4. Take the time, no matter how late in a 'conflicted' game, to calmly name what is going on and then invite everyone to go back to the beginning. To level the playing field and renegotiate how you will play as colleagues and as human beings. It is your responsibility to keep re-establishing the ground rules for how you wish to work and live.

Let me know how you are getting on.

Take your Brain for a Walk

"When a person has access to both the intuitive, creative and visual right brain and the analytical, logical, verbal left brain, then the whole brain is working." - Stephen Covey

It is easy to get stuck in Life. Even progressive, forward-thinking and highly intelligent people get stuck. Sometimes you bang your head against a problem, but you just can't move forward. The most frustrating part of it is, that often you just don't know why. That’s why I am passionate about using coaching methods that really change our thinking and “evolve” our brains. I have found one that really helps people break through the ‘stuckness’ and tap into higher creative centres of thinking and intuition, so you can get moving in the right direction again.

The method I am going to describe here is licensed to me as part of my Power Coaching™ work from CLI International Inc. It is brand new in Europe. My experience in coaching people with this method is that they very quickly discover how their thinking (their conscious mind) is so deeply affected by stuff that is blocked in their bodies and in their subconscious (the part of the mind that is not expressed in words but in emotions, or reactions that go beyond words) The Brain Walk® is a tool that stimulates us to move forward by accessing the unexpressed parts of our minds, which are connected to the intuitive or highest creative centres of our brain, in a step-by-step manner.

Now if this sounds wierd to you, rest assured that this all happens while you’re still awake. This is not therapy or regression or something woo-woo like hypnosis. It’s just plain old coaching that uses powerful questioning to help you learn to tap into more of your potential thinking power, to become aware of what you did so you can do it again, and to make sure you get a completely different and better solution from what you were ‘stuck’ in before.

It is well known that genius thinkers like Einstein and da Vinci would first formulate ideas and solutions through methods similar to this. For example, Einstein called his way of thinking “intuitive visualization”. When he was stuck, he’d stop talking, stop writing, avoid analyzing and just let his intuition come up with pictures or sounds, feelings or symbols. Then he’d try to figure out what they meant, trusting that they came up for a reason. These would help him find solutions “out of the blue” (actually out of his own subconscious) which were a much better answer than what his racing diagnostic mind could come up with. Considering what Einstein came up with, on average, I’d say, there’s certainly something to his technique!

So how can you learn to get out of your stuckness like Einstein did? Well, the Brain Walk® works on the premise that the human mind possesses all the knowledge we need to process our queries and provide us with more innovative solutions. The Brain Walk® is a basic taster of how you can learn ask yourself certain questions, and then take the images/thoughts/feelings/sounds/symbols that come up, and turn them into inspiring solutions that are connected into your original problem or goal. These are then translated into a SMART plan with logical action steps.

How would a typical coaching session go?
After a brief introduction to the Brain Walk®, we use the tool in practice.
The exercise takes about 30-50 minutes. You receive worksheets to keep track of what you are doing, and then you are invited to focus on a personal/professional question or problem. You then physically do the exercise to experience visualization and ‘brainstorming’ that involves your whole brain.

What’s the ‘whole brain’? Well normally, and also when we are under pressure, people tend to rely on ‘left brain’, or sequencing approaches to generate only ‘logical’ (and therefore limited) solutions. This is based very much on our training at school, in university, on computers, etc. It’s a lop-sided approach because it doesn’t access the right brain, intuition, or EQ. This type of knowledge is actually essential when we work in a fast paced, high-pressure environment, so that we don’t make the same mistake over and over again and basically either force an issue or give up.

In doing the Brain Walk®, you tap into solutions that may appear as words, sounds, feelings, symbols or images. This does not require years of practice and meditation, it simply requires a structured approach to both sourcing and decoding intuitive solutions, on the spot. In a Brain Walk® session you can experience how a simple, powerful set of questions can help you to jump into a whole new field of thinking, and connect with intuitive values and images that get you much more innovative solutions. At the end of the session, we ensure that the solutions you come up with are transformed into pragmatic action steps, thereby integrating information from both your left and right brains.

What are the benefits?
You will get a sense of what it feels like to use 2 of the 5 parts of the mind that humans need to develop truly breakthrough solutions: left brain, right brain, conscious mind, subconscious mind and a part of the frontal lobe that is often referred to as the superconscious. The more you practice with methods like the Brain Walk®, the better you become at what is known as pentalateral or whole brain thinking.

The key skills you will train yourself in while you do this are: Powerful questioning - creating awareness - designing innovative solutions and actions. So take action! Contact me:
coach(at)trustyourpotential.com

The Clock or your Life!

Many talented professionals suffer from the 'there are not enough hours in the day' syndrome, which makes us feel the only solution for getting all their work done and still having a modicum of Life (outside of work) is to invent the 27 or 39 hour clock.

Meaning that only when they stop work will they start taking care of the other critical areas of their lives (physical, emotional, social, family, creative, health, recreational, relaxational... not to mention doing nothing at all just to recoup the old batteries). The excuse is, "I have no time..."

It's as if people get obsessed with time and and assume that by micro-managing their time, they can beat the clock.
Think through this one logically with me.
The more you fill every minute, the more energy you are spending.
If you don't recoup your energy, the less well you will perform at each task you have to do.
As a result, you will lose more and more time, since you have to keep going back to fix or redo tasks, and you will be slower so you will take more time to do tasks. This is a downward spiral. Imagine a team running on 25% of its required internal energy reserves, and you can see how quickly the whole project becomes dysfunctional.

It is more helpful to understand that actually, time is relative. Specifically, time is relative to the quality of the energy you spend that time in. The higher the quality of your energy, the better your focus. The better your focus, the higher your performance.

To be able to optimise your work time you have to take care of your (physical, emotional) energy first. As time is relative to energy, so you can only get energy by taking time to recoup.

Catch 22? Not quite.

The trick is to stop focusing on time (packing more and more into shorter slots in your agenda) and start focusing on energy, effectively topping up your energy levels all day so you maintain a better focus.

As a professional, you usually have quite a bit of choice about how, how long, and where you spend your time. How would you spend it if you goal was to maintain optimal energy and not leave the office drained? This is a physical, not a mental thing. It's about your Life, not the Clock!

If you're stuck in assuming the Clock IS your Life, then you may be feeling rather jaded/unfocused right now. You may feel constantly harried, tired and unable to see ways to create more space for yourself. So now what?

The first step is awareness. You can use this simple formula to start:
For every 60 minutes you work, you take 3 minutes break.
You take these breaks every 60 minutes. You don't 'save them up' for the end of the day. You use the breaks to reset your energy levels to 100%. Yes, you need 3 minutes to do this. In those 3 minutes, you need to do NOTHING. Close your eyes and just think "recharge batteries". Rest completely, otherwise the break has been for nothing.

Invite your colleagues to join you on the energy performance challenge. After one day you will notice a difference. Let me know how it goes!

Peer learning circles

Want to get constructive feedback from your peers?

One way I recommend you use to achieve this is by setting up a 'peer learning circle'. These are groups of 5-10 peers -- colleagues in your company, professionals in your line of work or a network of people in the same field and at approximately the same level in business. As peers, your wish is to get feedback from each other on a specific set skills and competencies for your work.

A 'peer learning circle' has a rather different format from a mastermind group, which I described in an earlier article. A mastermind group has a maximum of 5-7 people who come from every walk of life. They meet weekly or every 2 weeks, with a long-term commitment to assist each other on any business or life issue that comes up. Members gain a deep bond and benefit from sharing resources and networks over time.

The peer learning circle, by contrast, is a group of about 10 people who do not necessarily know each other beforehand. The circle meets once very 6 weeks as a group of peers in the same line and level of work. Peers in the circle have the common desire to practice a pre-agreed set of skills or tactics in order to improve their individual competency in this area.

For example, I am a member of a peer coaching circle with the International Coach Federation. We formed the group to practice specific coaching skills. The circle holds in mini-coaching sessions involving one coach and one coachee from the group to sit in the 'hot seat' at each meeting. The coach specifies the competency s/he particularly wants to practice. The other peers observe the mini-session and then give feedback.

So how do you set up your own circle?
You literally put 10 chairs in a cirlce. Nothing else is needed.
There are two groups -- participants and observers.
Observers sit on one side of the circle and watch participants perform.
It's a bit like a fish bowl -- you watch the fish swim around and do their thing without disturbing them.

After a set amount of time, the simulation stops, and observers turn to each other to discuss amongst themselves what they saw during the 20 minutes. The participants listen to the feedback the observers give, in relation to the competency they were focusing on. After this, the whole circle joins again and the person who asked for feedback is given constructive tips on how to do things better/differently. The person receiving the feedback then summarizes what they learned from the feedback.

Why set up a peer learning circle?
A peer circle is valuable for professionals from any field that involves skill in dealing with people, such as management, team leadership, training, facilitation, customer service, sales, negotiation, mediation or consultancy.

It is an easy to keep developing yourself in practice. You have a mirror for your actions and improve your skills in a short time. Clubs like Toastmasters have done this for years for presentation and storytelling. The tricky part is to find other young talent like yourself who are courageous enough to share their experience in a small circle.

Simplicity is a well thought-out structure

An acquaintance of mine, who works as a project manager and mentor, recently described to me what it is that makes a big difference to him at work:

"Attitude. I love my positive attitude to life and I see how it opens doors, solves problems, and helps others. I think that 10% of our lives are the things that happen to us. The 90% is how we perceive it: our ATTITUDE is more important than talent, intelligence, health, wealth, beauty, or any other trait. And the best of it: ATTITUDE is the one thing we can determine for ourselves, every day when we wake up."

He told me that in his mentoring work, he'd been pleased with results people could achieve in changing their negative attitude, but that this mainly was a short term result. After helping someone "shape and foster a positive attitude," he told me, "I can't be confident that they will keep it in the long run". How to help people keep it?

Do you recognize this situation?

How do you keep a positive attitude at work when everyone around you so easily slips into complaining, assuming the worst, analysing the downside before considering the up?

A client told me this morning that he feels he cannot just walk around in his office like a perma-smile cheerleader when everyone else stays cool and cynical (and political) at work. So he gives up after a while, even though it doesn't make him feel good, and conforms to the back-stabbing atmosphere.

When I asked him what he could do about it, he told me there was no point, it's easier to put off doing anything about it, since it's just too hard to be "different" all the time. And I could see on his face how much it pained him to be walking around in what he called a "morgue" all day. What to do?

Well consider this: Is that the life you want to live, 8-10 hours a day?
It's very simple to answer. Yes or No.
I think we all know the answer to that.

Martin Avis, a British athlete's coach, wrote that, to start taking action for ourselves, we have to structure our thoughts before we can face of something that is really hard.
I thought it might be helpful to share what he said here.

"If you are putting something off because it is too hard, try this simple technique
- but don't be put off because it IS so simple.

Take a blank sheet of paper and write down the difficult task at the top.

Now imagine that you have got to sell that hard job to someone else.
What would you say to convince them to take it on?

Use every scrap of imagination you possess and find three 'benefits' that another person will gain by doing the job. Get creative here!

Write your benefits down as bullet points and then draw a line under them.

Now, under the line, write down the first action that is needed to begin the job. What is the VERY first thing that you have to do? THAT action is your primary task for today.

When it is done, read your whole sheet over again and write down
the NEXT action required.

Keep on repeating the process until the job is done or you are so far into it that your own momentum will keep you going.

But don't forget to read the ENTIRE sheet each time you come back to it.
Each time you go through it you will reinforce to yourself the positive benefits that the job will bring. Plus, your motivation will be enhanced every time you see all the parts of the job that have already been achieved."

Re-reading is the simple science behind re-programming your attitude.
Once you see what you've achieved, you become immune to the negativity in other people and focus on what you CAN do. Structured thinking and training yourself in this way helps: it's what gives your positive attitude the strength to survive.

As Martin says: "Simple, but not stupid."

A ha! I think we are on to something here... Try it and let me know what you get!
Smiles,

Madelon

Tough decisions

Sometimes we are faced with a tough decision.

Tough decisions are not always about life and death, hard core survival, but often about dilemma's that we just cannot seem to get a clear answer to. Some questions my clients face are:
Shall I quit my job now, or wait until I am made redundant? Shall I stay on this current career path, or expand my horizons into a whole new field of work? Shall I tell my boss what I reallly think, or shut my mouth? Should I have children now while I am doing my MBA, or wait until things settle down?

One of the things about making a decision, especially a tough one, is that you just don't know what the consequences will be, either way. It's impossible to completely predict the outcome, but there are two things you can do which can help.

First, visualise both outcomes (A or B, leave or stay etc.) in your mind's eye and write out for yourself the potential consequences of either decision. Do not just focus on the negative consequences; your What If scenarios have huge potential for being a source of learning and development no matter which option you choose. Ask yourself, which obstacles will I have overcome by the time I get to outcome A (or B)? what will I have learned? what will my life look like on a daily basis?

Secondly, if you have seen both scenarios before you but you still cannot make a decision between two choices, toss a coin. Seems random but that's the point. Do it without expectations. You see, it's not whether the coin comes down heads or tails that's the deciding factor... it's how you feel about the fact that the coin has come down heads or tails. Are you disappointed or pleased with the result? It definitely helps you clarify your feelings about the decision to be made. If you feel disappointed, you know which one to choose -- not the disappointing one!

A colleague wrote me today about a tough decision, which she is trying to resolve with a partner. She said, "the only thing that is clear to us is that we have no idea what the future holds". All she knows is, that you should never compromise your vision of the results you want to achieve. Life is too short to go for mediocre goals and dreams you never even tried to fulfill. Your talent is too precious to be wasted in a side-tracked job that you jumped at just because it was there, or half-baked plan about how you are going to spend the rest of your life together with people who are important to you.

If you are unclear about anything, ask yourself, what am I afraid of? It's what you are afraid of that is stopping you, not the fact that you don't know which way to turn. Fear freezes the rabbit in the headlights. Focusing on movement, on making a choice and going with it no matter what (after you've done your homework of course), is very helpful. I asked my friend what is the one thing we can be very sure about. She said: the minute you close one door behind you and walk through another door, you are no longer in the same place.

If you can begin to sense that, deep down, this is just what Life is about, you can at least know that you have done your best and you are moving into new territory, with new opportunities and challenges. And it is both the opportunity and the challenge that is what makes your work interesting and worth pursuiing. Go for it!

Bits and pieces

Mary-Elaine Jacobsen, Psy.D., in her seminal work The Gifted Adult: a revolutionary guide for liberating everyday genius, writes about how the exhaustion and stress many talented professionals feel, may stem from the fact that young people with a lot of talent can do a lot more, move faster, see into things more quickly than others, and feel impatient when others cannot. Are you setting yourself up for constant conflict?

If you are talented, and you know it, you probably cherish what Jacobsen calls your "atypicality" (the fact that you are different, special and able to do more than others, since you are aware of this and know it can be an advantage in your career). Gifted adults tend to be "internally motivated, creative, and energized by life's challenges." They don't need others to tell them what to do. Whereas many other people appear to wait for some kind of instructions, or stimulus from outside, to follow a leader, find a well-worn path, and take the safe road. You might therefore experience that you have few colleagues or friends with whom you can truly relate. This is simply because, in terms of research done on gifted adults, there just aren't that many out there. That is why as, Jacobsen says, at "the very least we must be able to honestly relate to ourselves". We need to find a way to balance out the "unbecoming extremes" that many gifted adults demonstrate when the contrast between what you feel inside and what other people say about you / expect of you gets too big, and you over-react or make yourself small just to accommodate. For example, do you recognise this situation?

People around you say: "You're so concerned about everything and everybody. Stop looking for trouble!" {Citing from Dr. Jacobsen's book in italics}

You send yourself the internal message: "Why can't I just mind my own business?"

And then you start to create self-destructive reactions:
Exaggerated: Overly responsible; absorbs the troubles of the world like a sponge; feels resentful and burned out; outspoken truth telling backfires.

Collapsed: Paralyzed by feelings of self-doubt, alienation, and despair; highly distrustful of others or even slightly paranoid; conceals creativity or good ideas to avoid exploitation.

Have a think about this. Do you feel pressure from inside to always to uncover hidden lies, or to come out and tell the truth about yourself and others, no matter how painful it is? Are many around you less than happy with this, and yet still come to you for answers to their dilemma's? It may be that when you feel you must help them, you peel back too many layers and expose them to something that they are just not ready to see in themselves. That is when you can expect your insights, which are probably well-founded and valuable, to be thrown back in your face.

This is not an effective way to move up the corporate ladder. You will need to find a balance between the degree to which you value 'pure, blunt' truthfulness and the relativity of truth which exists of respect for others (that is, your own truth is no more valuable than all other truths). You can also focus on compassion for those who struggle in another world view, rather than having to solve their problem for them. If you can find a way, as Jacobsen describes it, "to become selective about how or when of if you choose to share what you know to be true", you can keep alot more energy for yourself, and be far less burdened by people who come to you for advice. This is because you do not have to confront them with your truth. As a result, they will no longer feel you are being 'cruel to be kind'.

This is not saying you simply need to shut up or become silent, apathetic or hypocritical. Sometimes just asking a question about the other person's world and then completely witholding judgement on it, gives the other person alot more to go with. Or if you are asked a question outright, saying 'let me think about it' (and then ask the person some questions later on, rather than stating your conclusion, advice or opinion) is more helpful than saying "Well I think..." or "If I were you I would...". It's about accepting what is in the other person, rather than trying to take the full responsibility for solving all the problems in the world onto yourself.

A song/poem I received today from a client points this out in a succint and powerful way, and shows how life can bring us many lessons and surprises, but it does not have to make us break down.

Bits and pieces

Bits and pieces

People important to you

People unimportant to you - cross your life, touch it with love and carelessness and move on.

There are people who leave you and you breathe a sigh of relief and wonder why you ever came into contact with them.

There are people who leave you and you breathe a sigh of remorse and wonder why they had to go away and leave such a gaping hole.

Children leave parents;

Friends leave friends;

Acquaintances move on.

People change homes;

People grow apart;

Enemies hate and move on.

Friends love and move on.

You think of the many who have moved into your hazy memory;
You look on those present and wonder.

I believe in God's master plan in our lives.
He moves people in and out of each other's lives and each leaves his mark on the other.
You find you are made up of bits and pieces of all who ever touched your life and you are more because of it and you would be less if they had not touched you.

Pray to God that you accept the bits and pieces in humility and wonder, 
and never question;
 and never regret.

Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

-- Lois Cheney

Cheney talks about becoming aware of, and accepting, the continuous change and flux of things in life, which is the opposite of trying to understand and control everything all the time. When we start to develop ourselves, as leaders, professionals and talented individuals, we can start to 'go with' this natural contradiction; there are lots of opportunities during a workday to begin to discover life this way. Try it and experience the difference!

The Upper Limit Problem

A wonderful colleague, Ann Harrison, who is a retirement coach in the UK, shared this with a mastermind I am involved in this week. I wish to pass it on to you because over the last months I have spoken with so many clients and acquaintances who simply cannot get past their stuckness and negative thinking in order to reach what they want in changing their jobs / career path. This is a valuable resource for you to move on and get positive with what you are committing to in your life.

Gay and Katie Hendricks have written a new book called the Big Leap.
One of the core tenets of the Hendricks' work is the idea that we each carry an unconscious "thermostat" inside us set for exactly how much positive experience we can stand (joy, happiness, pleasure). Once that upper limit is reached, we will find a way to bring ourselves back down to a more "comfortable" level of happiness and success.

Here's how Gay writes about it in his wonderful new book The Big Leap:

[The Upper Limit Problem] shows up when we're feeling good (or making extra money or feeling a deeper loving connection in a relationship). When we're feeling good, we may come up against the hidden barrier of an old belief such as "I must not feel good, because fundamentally flawed people like me don't deserve it." The churning froth of these two powerful forces clashing with each other is the chief constituent of the irritating, itchy, slow-drizzle feeling of guilt. When the old belief clashes with the positive feelings you're enjoying, one of them has to win. If the old belief wins, you turn down the volume on the positive feeling (or lose some money or start an relationship-destroying argument
with your colleague). If the good feeling wins, congratulations!

Your practice in expanding your capacity for positive thinking is paying off. Your capacity expands in small increments each time you consciously let yourself enjoy the money you have, the freedom you feel, and the creativity you are expressing in the world. As that capacity for enjoyment expands, so does your financial abundance, the freedom you feel, and the creativity you express. It's a way of retraining your brain to do something new.

What's surprising to most people that I've shared this idea with is that they recognize they have a very distinct answer to the question "How good can you stand it?" - and that answer is almost never "As good as it gets!"

The prescription for breaking through the Upper Limit Problem (or ULP, for short!) is simple:
1. Ask yourself "Am I willing to feel good and have my life go well all the time?"
2. Notice anywhere your answer is anything other than an emphatic "Yes!" and clean it up.
2. Discovering your Commitments

The Hendricks point out that the problem isn't that we lack commitment in our lives - it's that we are unconsciously committed to all sorts of things that simply don't work.

The way you uncover your unconscious commitments is simply to notice whatever you do consistently and recognize that if you aren't willing to change it in this moment, then you must (ironically enough) be committed to doing it. Even though it doesn't feel right and is not postive.

Today's Experiment:

1. Make a list of any unwanted conditions in your life that you would like to change.

Example:
Being unemployed or in an unfulfilling job.

Assume that in order to maintain this condition, you must at some level be committed to it. Give voice to this unconscious commitment with this sentence starter.

I am committed to...

Examples:
I am committed to being unhappy and committed to being in an unfulfilling job. Your mind will fight you like crazy but let your body take over as you repeat this "commitment statement" again and again both out loud and in your head. If you find yourself arguing with it, resisting it,
distracting yourself, or "deciding not to do it" within the first three minutes, smile at this wonderful self-protection mechanism and keep repeating the statement.

4. At some point, you will experience a feeling shift in your body; it feels like you get lighter and kind of a relief. You may get sad or want to cry, this is just a release of a lot of tension and is no big deal. This lets you know that you've taken ownership of your old, unconscious commitment and are now ready to change.

5. Now, consider what you'd like to commit to instead. Use this sentence starter to give voice to this new commitment: I commit to...

Example: I commit to finding work that I love and want to do.

Continue speaking your new commitment out loud and in your head until your brain turns the words into a feeling. If you feel your feelings shift that lets you know that your brain is ready to grasp onto the new commitment going forward.

7. Choose one action you can take to begin grounding your new commitment in the real world (out of your head) within the next 24 hours.

Examples: I will network with 4 people each week who can open doors and help me on the way to my dream job.

Take ½ an hour to begin brainstorming everything you want to do so that you can name and frame a new conscious commitment to change in your work!

Enjoy the process. I commit to being here to help you along the way. Smiles!

Masterminding your way to the top

One of the most useful ways of developing yourself as a young leader is to join a professionally facilitated mastermind group. As an executive coach, I set up and lead these kinds of groups for management teams in business.

A mastermind group is a group of people who come together to mutually assist each other in their pursuit of success. The idea is that the members of the mastermind group each provide vital skills and knowledge that other members may lack. They share ideas, offer help and advice and contribute to the group so that all members may become successful.

Masterminds have been around for a long time. Mastermind groups were first described in the Anglosaxon world in Napoleon Hill's 1937 book, Think and Grow Rich. Hill learned about masterminds from Andrew Carnegie who had successfully used these kinds of groups to build his steel business. Another successful mastermind group was set up by car manufacturer Henry Ford. The power of the mastermind is clear when you look at examples like Bill Gates and Microsoft. Bill Gates still meets with his mastermind group decades after they started, even though he's no longer directly involved in the business.

So how does it work? Simple. A group of 5-6 members with complimentary skills commits to meet once a week. Face to face or by the web or skype, which all work well given time or geographical constraints. Your facilitator or mastermind leader makes sure that there is clear structure in terms of time, who says what, how questioning goes, brainstorming and wrapping up. The group commits to share their knowledge and their network, for the benefit of all the members of the group. Each member also agrees to do any homework they assign themselves during the session, to report back the following week.

One thing that is not described in the general literature on masterminds, but which I find really works, is to do a bit of what I call 'gift giving' at the end of each session to motivate yourself and other mastermind members. It can take as little as 5 minutes or be continued after the session by private phone/skype or email.

At the end of a session, I usually ask each person to write one thing they learned from one other person in their notebook. Then ask them to write one thing they would like to offer one other person (doesn't have to be the same person of course) on a piece of paper. A quote, an inspiring suggestion, a positive image of what they see is potentially possible for this person and how they might get there. Keeping it simple and legible. People can share what they've written either in the group or if there's no time afterwards via a closed mastermind forum online or via phone or private email.

It's the gesture of acknowledging others in your mastermind group that counts. Your gift makes the learning collective rather than just saying What's in it for me? or What I've learned is....

Contact me if you'd like to set up a mastermind group of your own! Email coach(at)trustyourpotential.com

Mind vs mindfulness: getting out of the box

There is no end of bad news on the financial crisis.
So many people are hitting rock bottom, with their companies, themselves and their career outlook.

We could be very understanding of that and feel sorry them, and for ourselves.
But... are we just going to stay there and talk ourselves (along with the rest of the world) into doom and failure? I would rather invite you to explore the possibility of getting out of the negative 'box' of thinking that many people seem so stuck in, and develop a new picture of yourself in the world.

To that end, I would like to recommend a book that is fascinating, about how we can change our minds and not fall back into the same old negative 'broken record' that may be keeping us from thinking positively and moving on with our lives, despite all the challenges in our paths.
The book is called Evolve Your Brain by Joe Dipenza.

Is there scientific evidence that our brains can actually evolve? Dispenza discusses new understandings in the world of neuroscience that show that in fact it is very possible to evolve your brain. The latest findings confirm that the brain is not hard-wired. It can rewire its neuronal circuits at any time throughout our lives. This is called "neuroplasticity" and it is this that allows us to evolve our brain.

What does this evolving your brain actually entail?
At the individual level, evolving your brain is a process: it involves a highly focused mindfulness practice that you do yourself. Mindfulness practice involves finding ways into and ways to dwell within a new way of being with ourselves, and seeing ourselves and our experience differently. You really focus on your energy, the energy that is affecting you in your environment and you transform that into how you want to be in the world. It involves sustained, in-depth training in suspending our habitual ways of thinking and perceiving and in redirecting our awareness to enable us to see freshly.

Now, traditional MBA's and commercial management education are all about the rational-empirical mind -- an intellectual approach to learning that is about analysis, status, and winning. That's great. But they are also missing a major source of knowledge that could serve our leaders well in this crisis. You see, what they forget that there is another way of taking and using power, which is grounded in mindfulness.

The ability to control and relax the mind into a 'no-mind' and 'positive mind' state has for centuries been at the core of elite leadership training in many cultures. Mindfulness is, in essence, the mastery of the 'busy' reactionary and analytical mind, which is required before you can seriously go on to access a greater range of power, knowledge, wisdom, and creativity.

Sadly my experience is that mindfulness training is still missing from most businesses, and from most business schools, even the top business schools in the world. That just goes to show what their minds are focused on....You might ask, if mindfulness is the way out of the box, why don't business people do it? Doesn't that mean it's irrelevant? Well mindfulness practice is avoided on a large scale because it asks you to question how you are, what you are thinking and to be willing to let go of old patterns and positions in your life and in your work. It's pretty scary to just change yourself, and expose yourself to uncertainty, when everything is so uncertain already. Nevertheless, I would argue that rather than clinging to and conforming to a limited modus operandus that the business world traditionally sees as the only way to actually 'be' powerful in business, businesses are more often than simply stuck in a negative and limited box. Let me ask you: what kind of good is this type of mind is doing for most people now? Not a lot, if you ask me. It's bankrupt, just like a lot of the businesses worldwide.

So what's next? Just imagine: what's next is a way to stop letting the proverbial yoghurt keep on hitting the fan, stopping the negative and bankrupt way of thinking. A new way of thinking can be achieved if you are willing to literally get your head round a much more powerful way to control your thinking, and to change your mind. The sooner you begin your orientaion to mindfulness, the more you can tap into a wealth of ancient power and wisdom and connect with the people and resources that can provide you living evidence of its value for contemporary leadership. By starting mindfulness training, you can discover a range of exercises that can be applied in any setting.

How to get started? Well, you could start by just listening to some mindfulness training CDs. Some good ones I have found are by one of the top teachers in the world (see http://www.mindfulnesstapes.com). Dr. Kabat-Zinn is internationally known as a meditation teacher, author, researcher, and clinician in the fields of mind/body medicine and the applications of mindfulness meditation in everyday living to optimize one's capacity to face stress and uncertainty.

The second thing you need to do is go easy on yourself. One of the first things many people come across is how hard it is to let go of what is 'known' so that a new way of looking and learning can happen. To start your solo practice I would definitely recommend methods like Joe Dispenza describes in his book, which you can do on your own. However, it can be daunting and confusing just to go and start out alone, since your busy mind will be fighting you all the way, telling you not to change and dragging you back into the negative box.

That's why it's worth it to make time to physically go to a class or training, to join a group that practices some kind of simple meditation or focused training in mindfulness. This can range from pure and simple Zen meditation (often free at Buddhist centres) to a program at a retreat that can last up to 10 days. To find out more, google for a mindfulness training in your neighborhood or take a little break and join a group. You could find something to suit you via resource like http://www.retreatsonline.com/guide/meditation.htm. Please note I am not recommending these retreats over any other retreat in particular; ultimately the choice is entirely up to you.

If you just do it, you can jump out of that box and take your mind to the next level. See you there!

Are you a genius? (just say YES)

One of the women who I admire as a role model for creative geniuses is Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of an internationaller bestseller called Eat, Pray, Love. This year, she gave a talk at TED, an international community that shares ideas that are worth spreading. She offers a different way to think about creative genius and, with humor and disarming irony, she muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses in general. Check out her talk, on video via the TED site, where she explains how it is possible that, instead of only having a rare person "being" a genius, all of us actually "have" a genius. If we are willing to work on it.

What is the difference between an ordinary mind and one of genius? Is it something mysterious and a talent that only to a few special individuals possess? How would someone our society tends to consider a genius answer that question? How was their creativity was inspired?

Leonardo da Vinci is an example of a genius who was not only an artist, but a scientist and inventor as well. His creative genius was chronicled through his art and journals, and research has revealed him to be a true Renaissance man and far ahead of his time. Michael Gelb wrote a now classic personal growth guidebook called How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day, that's won the admiration of leaders worldwide and is well worth a read. As founder of High Performance Learning and consultant for companies including AT&T and National Public Radio, Gelb says that we all can unlock the "da Vincian" genius inside us. Gelb says there are seven critical principles that need to be followed for success, whether you're learning a new language, studying to be a gourmet chef, or just hoping to be more effective on the job:

* Curiosita: An insatiably curious approach to life.
* Dimonstratzione: A commitment to test knowledge through experience.
* Sensazione: The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to clarify experience.
* Sfumato: A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.
* Arte/Scienza: The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination ("whole-brain thinking").
* Corporalita: The cultivation of ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
* Connessione: A recognition and appreciation for the connectedness of all things and phenomena; "systems thinking."

Gelb discusses each of these principles in relation to what da Vinci accomplished. Check it out on Amazon!

Naturally you could just go on the internet and do some IQ test somewhere and see if you're a genius. However Internet IQ tests tend not to give a consistent structure or score of testing and are nothing like official tests; for example they give inflated scores - everyone scores above average -- so they can sell you genius products. In general IQ alone doesn't tell you anything about what you'll accomplish. For that you need a large dose of Emotional Quotient (or intelligence) and Social skills. Perfectly ordinary people can go on to get a PhD and contribute to science, while geniuses can sit on the couch playing x-box all day and lose their time and their potential.

My view is that there is no point seeing creativity and genius as something that is limited to people who studied fine arts or who work as professional artists. What a waste of your talent! Creative thought abounds in all occupations and must be practiced and cultivated in everyone. I have found over the years that as we study and try out more and more techniques for creativity and innovation, we can experience a whole new way of thinking and integrate new practices into our own way of working, for better results.

Here are some ways to improve your productivity by using creativity:

1. Have multiple creative projects on the go

You need lots of projects. Got an idea? Go! start creating it in real life. Don't let it just sit in your head.
If you have more than 3 projects, then keep a master list of what you are doing. If you are disorganized, don't collect notebooks you won't remember writing in or computer files you won't
remember creating. Keep just one list, in one booklet, in your pocket. Or on your phone.

2. Plan your creative work in short and long term

Start with the biggie, the long term project. Know that you'll never have enough time to write a whole book or create a new product in one day. But you can write a page. Tomorrow you write another. Maybe next week you'll get 5 steps ahead in one morning. If you then switch to your short term project get a charge from completing a short piece of work, that inspires you again to work on your current long project.

3. Always practice being creative

Use a sketchbook, your mobile phone for audio/video ideas, your camera. Snatch five minutes (even if it's in a restroom somewhere) and write, talk to yourself, take photos, or sketch.

4. Find a creative buddy. Team up with someone else and collaborate on a
project. Having a creative buddy teaches you things you didn't know about yourself
and your work. And it's fun. Just make sure that it's a working relationship. Get the work done, and then you can socialize.

5. Take a sabbatical or take regular time out

When you work all the time, you will be flat, dull, and burn out! So you need breaks to recharge and recharge your intuitive batteries. Turn your mind off. Create slow periods that you can use to find inspiration and do something new. Just say yes to yourself. Let yourself do it! Enjoy.

Corporations need leaders who can handle crisis

The financial crisis is an interesting time to distinguish between those who buckle down, put their noses to the grind stone to keep their jobs, and those who can't or don't want to follow the rules, who break out and become entrepreneurs. Today I am talking about the majority of young talent, those of you who want to keep their jobs, because you may just have come into the company and are fearful of finding something else in this current financial crisis.

Many young employees I coach expect that work should be mainly about themselves -- that is their own job, having fun and going on courses for learning, as they did in university, but then paid for by the company. That's a mistake. The bottom line in a corporate environment is that people expect you to perform -- that is to lead, and to conform -- which is basically to behave traditionally. They expect employees, for example, to be on time, be a good corporate citizen and go out of their way to serve the company and help customers and colleagues. These traditional values are still held in high esteem by most employers in the corporate world, and you won't be changing that overnight. Leadership and conformity, an uneasy mix for some. If, deep down, you are just in it for a job, or you'd rather be leader but not conform, or you'd rather just conform and not have all the hassle associated with leadership, then you are in for quite a rough ride on your career.

Even though you were hired because the boss saw your talent and thought you would excel at your job, you should realise that your talent or competence alone isn't enough to stay in a job when things get tight in the economy. So how can you show your leadership in tough times? Take a look at what your company is recommending if you want to keep your job. See if it really fits with what you believe in. Understand that you are working in a company that has a distinct corporate culture. Talented employees should know they are valuable to the company but also show how valuable they are. You could look at the territory and start networking within the company more, in order to keep connected, and to stay abreast of change. Pyschologically this takes away a lot of fear, because you have a support network and won't just react to new situations, like the current crisis, with (negative) surprise. You saw it coming and you have a strategy to deal with it.

Be aware however, that companies with strong corporate culture do not always nuture strong performance in their talent. You can help your company ensure that the corporate culture is a good one to work in by communicating with your superiors on how you want to take action on the following points:

* promoting values aligned with the environment;
* having consideration for all people associated with the company: employees, shareholders, and customers (not just employees or customers, or just your boss)
* placing value on leadership rather than bureaucracy.

If you feel your company is not doing the above 3 things, you should take action (not by complaining) to make sure they ameliorate. It shows great initiative and shows you care about the company. It also leads to better results.

In taking action as an employee, it is enlightening to look at your company from the boss's point of view, to understand the kinds of decisions that need to be made in order to keep the company afloat. This includes slashing costs and making more effective plans for marketing, management, finance, organisation -- but most importantly there is the question of what do with the people (read: expensive personnel). A great resource and a quick read on the topic is Tough Tactics for Tough Times, by Patrick Forsyth and Frances Kay, Kogan Page publishers 2009, ISBN 9780749455217. What this book emphasizes, and what all company owners need to see, is that every employee is worth the cost.

The boss needs you work to make money for the company, not the other way round. That is the price you pay for being an employee. If it's up to the corporates, then you will be expected to conform to the current culture, at the very least. From there, they will expect you to perform in
accordance with their goals and strategies, over a period of years.

Running a company is hard work. You are part of running a company, if you choose to have a job in one. To fit in, your commitment to hard work needs to be real, and it is achievable only if you feel, in the long-run, that your role in the company (or one like it, or corporate culture in general) is worth it, so you can take pride in what you do.

5 steps of Power Coaching™

My clients often ask what a coaching session might look like and what the results might be. Great question. Here is a taster of the steps I usually take in guiding you to your goals.

Step 1 PROFILE: I assist you in profiling your strengths, the values you are missing in your work and other areas of your life. I help you and use questionnaires that you can do as preparation beforehand, to begin identifying areas of improvement and getting you to specify desired results.

Step 2 FOCUS: I assist you in determining a real issue or goal that you want to focus on per session, and I ask you which specific results you'd like to achieve per session. This helps you get your head round a small piece of all the work you want to do to develop your personal leadership, your career, or whatever it is that you want to focus on. Your brain can only handle so much, so the sharper the focus, the better!

Step 3 EXPLORE: As a coach my job is to remain neutral and allow you to fully explore roadblocks, assumptions and questions around a chosen issue, challenge or goal. As you dig deeper into your challenges, a good coach selects tools by which you can ask yourself some pretty hard questions, and look at some issues that you may not usually like looking at. This process will help you speed up and maximize learning, but never 'tells you what to do'. In that sense, coaching is not the same as mentoring, supervision or consultancy. You are responsible for your own thoughts, actions, and reactions in life.

Step 4 RELEASE: Once certain blocks are identified, the coaching system I use, which was developed by CLI International, facilitates a release of (often unconscious) thought patterns and emotions around the issue. The way this happens is often with a big sigh of relief, laughter, or perhaps tears of recognition. All of this is fine. We move on however, and try to grab as much room as possible to breathe, open up thinking cells in the brain and create a positive shift in perceptions. We will work creatively to generate more innovative solutions, and I will help you tap into left brain techniques of thinking.

Step 5 PLAN: At the end of each session I always assist you in developing solutions with a SMART plan. The SMART model was developed by psychologists as a tool to help people set and reach their goals in a logical and analytical way. It's back to business now, but with a whole new point of view. Once you have your plan I am happy to mentor you (that is give you advice on your request), when and if necessary. Most importantly however, I will always ask for commitment to your plan. We will also agree on a clear follow-up and evaluation of your coaching over time.

What can a coach really do for you?

Three years ago, quite a discussion about executive coaching erupted around a report in Harvard Business review. For some reason, it is still unclear what the real meaning and use of executive / professional coaching is for many people who work in business. Many executive believe getting a coach is the equivalent of 'seeing a shrink' or 'being sick' or showing you are 'weak'. I wonder why. Perhaps it also has to do with the way many life coaches perceive their clients. Someone at an entrepreneurial seminar said recently "I made a mistake. I was writing a book about life coaching for big business people. But I realised, they don't want to look inside. They are happy focusing just on the money and not on themselves or the ethics of what they are doing".
Well that's quite a statement.
I'm glad I can offer a different perspective on what executive need from a coach, based on my own experience.

Even though I am not personally focused on life coaching, but on business and executive coaching, I can honestly say that high flyers I work with dive right into deeper life questions within the first session. In my years of coaching young talent, I have noticed that one of the first things clients question is the value of their jobs, their money and their career plans, when they cannot first get clear on what they are going to do with their lives as a whole. After that, they are happy to go back to work! So that's where the yin-yang is: you need perspective on the whole picture, not just the half of you that hangs out at work every day. Many people in quarter or mid-life crisis are the ones who want coaching, precisely so that the connection can be made between what they are doing now, for 60 odd hours a week at work, and the rest of their lives!

So I am delighted that HBr has heralded in some extensive research into the question of what an executive coach can really do for you, with some interesting answers and in-depth information on what executives look for from a coach. Despite the widespread use of coaches in organizations today, little is known about who coaches are, what they do, or how much they earn. The results of this survey, conducted with 140 experienced coaches, is in the January 2009 issue of HBr.
For more insight, click here.

Setting goals for a bright future

If you are working consciously on your development as a young leader, it is essential to pick a role model (or complementary role models) who represent what you want to achieve in your working or business life and learn from what they are doing to make a brighter future for themselves. For example, Richard Branson, who always expands his business in difficult times. His goal is to 'be brave when others are fearful', so that when the economy picks up (as many say it will by the end of this year), the risks taken now will have built huge head starts on gaining much more return on investment for the future.

If you haven't set your goals for a bright 2009 yet, and already feel swamped, here's a great little primer by wealth guru Michael Masterson to get you going: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rqCriPkLG2Q

Although the video clips offers a few nice technique for organising your goals and tasks at the office, it may that you are stuck in the pre-goal settting phase. What do I want? And what do I write as a goal? Long term, short terms, weekly, daily? Where do I start?

As all great wine tasters know, the only way of starting is to prepare your nose and your palette for the tasting. So you can really smell the aromas (opportunities) and taste the different elements (more opportunities) in your particular choice of wine. So to start, a wine taster will clear the palette so to speak by doing the opposite of what people think is good for tasting wine: that is, eat a
strong dose of smelly goats' cheese.

Symbollicaly, the goat's cheese represents your mess of papers and chaos in your office or workspace (and life). First thing to do there is, very simple, to clear up. And don't stop till it's done. Bite into the smelly grunge work with gusto, chew it up and then get rid of the mess for once and for all by letting the paper shredder swallow it! My experience is not to think but simply to do.
Fast.
Goal: clean desk. No hidden piles. No doubting (should I chuck this? Do I need this?). Just clear the palette.

Then, with the externals clear, take a look at where you are inside your head and heart (2 main elements that allow you to really taste life), and check in with what they are telling you -- if anything at all. Could be there is so much chaos and conflict in there you can't make out a
word. To quieten this down, take out 15 minutes each day to observe (rather than control or change or solve) the stories that are going inside. Decide which needs are coming up that are most important and write those down.

You need these needs clear before you can set your goals. And to know your needs, you also have to be honest about your limiting beliefs which may be clouding your mind. For example, what are your limiting beliefs about your career path, or your money? If you are asking 'how can I protect my salary' rather than 'how is this recession the best thing for my earning power and for my business?' and see how different are the answers you get!

You can go to a deeper level to work through the negative blocks via coaching or self-help reading/audio guides, which takes a little more time to really get to the deeper causes of your limiting beliefs, but at the end of the day gets you much further.

For a background book on limiting beliefs, check out the book "Feelings Buried Alive Never Die" by Karol k Truman.

So what is beyond the limiting beliefs, and how do I fill in the goals for 2009?
Well remember first and foremost that the reason for goal setting is not just about earning x amount of money or get to x or y steps in your career! It is about the whole journey you want to take, your
mission in life. It's how far you want your potential to blossom. That is your mission for 2009, and beyond. It is much bigger than the relatively small and temporary limiting beliefs and limited options that are often tied to work and money, which you are probably focusing on now...

Wishing you a flying start this month!

The point of a new year is not that we have a new year...

Last day of work. what a year this has been! Many new beginnings, and many a point on which I chose consciously to make an ending. To lighten up my life and keep the focus clear. There's only so much room for so many projects and people and priorities. It feels good to have some time now to wipe the slate clean and dream about all that I wish to create in the new year!

What we wish to create has a lot to do with our inner 'drivers' or motivations, that come from inside and which are rooted in our sense of well-being. Those natural inclinations that we have often manifest in a subconscious way. You can see in a person's body language whether they are engaged in an activity with "heart and soul" or whether they have mentally checked out because, deep down, it doesn't really drive them. That is one level of motivation.

On another level, each of us has a preferred behavioural style for communication, learning, acting. You might naturally prefer to listen to someone speaking/explaining instead of having to read instructions. You also naturally have your own speed of doing things. Some people seem to prefer to work slowly and methodically, others do things chaotically and with (excess) energy.

There is no one way that is wrong or right in this. The point is, it's good to know what your drivers are and what kind of attention they need, in order to be able to make your life easier, save yourself stress and and unnecessary inner resistance in the coming months.

"The object of a new year is no that we should have a new year.
It is that we should have a new soul."
- G.K. Chesterton

So what is your soul saying to you?

Here's a New Year's tip to help you listen.
Open a new book. The pages of this book are blank.
Be free: think up some new images, inspiring words, describe a couple of things that you really wish you could do but haven't yet, even though your soul is crying out for it, so to speak. Make them real: jot them down for yourself and really look at what you've written.
Think about how you can starting doing these things, so you follow up on what you've written.
It starts with seeing, and taking an opportunity to do things the way you want to be. To lead yourself back to your driving force and the capacity to keep going because your inner voicee says Yes this is what I like doing! Let's do more of this!

The title of your book is THE REAL ME 2009.
The frist chapter starts on new year's day.

I look forward to supporting you to achieve success, keeping the soul of your work fresh and creative.
Enjoy the holidays!

Creating your future: 2009

The main problem that people have nowadays is being bombarded with images and messages from birth via every form of media to want, want, want, and to need, need, need, yet not having the mentoring to be capable of progressing themselves to the level of understanding and education to go out and create, create, create.
- graham wendes

On the 28th-30th January 2009 the annual "War for Talent" Conference will take place in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It is part of the Talent Management and Leadership Development Series. The goal is to help HR managers "cultivate" the next generation of leaders, drive a high performance workforce and achieve optimum business results in any market conditions. The next generation is now between 25 and 35. That means you.

The goal of this conference (ostensibly aimed at HR professionals) triggers a lot of questions for me as an executive coach. Where is the perspective of young talent in all this? Do you even wish be "cultivated"? Or do you have another way you wish to approach leadership in the context of the company that you are working for? What does the next generation of leadership mean for you? And what should the future look like in terms of supporting young talent, based on their own expressed needs (not just those of the company)? And beyond needs, how do you, as young talent, wish to create your future in this company (or in association with it)?

Many managers believe young leaders should be able to "think big". However, in times like now, when the focus shifts from risk taking to risk aversion, managers can suddenly want to sit on power, and start thinking small. When a recession hits, everyone seems to knee-jerk into looking for action, instant solutions, fix its that require "quick doing" rather than "sustainable change." Others may start to micro manage young talent, get caught up in details better left to others, or try to keep status by delegating task work to you that amounts to controlling trivial and unimportant aspects of work, which are not really part of your true leadership profile.

When looking at the goals of leadership, it is from my perspective much more important to keep focus on who you want to become as a leader. It is important to envision what you want the leader inside you to be, rather than falling back on 'junior project management' mode, where you are rewarded only for this list of tasks you can check off as done. What a leader does must be expressed from your deeper belief in where you want to go with your Self and your team, from your personal style, vision and courage. By doing this, you pave the way for others, more young talent that will help you take on the tasks you should be able to delegate, in return for your true leadership.

What will you create in 2009? Trust your potential and show us.

Is your Job in sync with your Self?

High potentials like yourself want to grow and find work that suits their talents best. Often however, you may be doing a job that is not quite in sync with what you feel inside, with your sense of a relaxed Self who has a natural way of doing things.

At times, the contract between what you feel inside as the natural way you would like to work become a loud voice that starts to demand attention. This is confusing because you are essentially good at what you do, and are told by others around you that you are great at what you do, and you've got the degree to prove it. So it is easy to tell that voice inside you to take a hike.

Problem is, your Self will not go away. It's the only thing that you will always have to carry with you. It's your Self that is giving you that sinking feeling inside, telling you that you are not really enjoying what you are doing, or you are hating parts of the job so much that you are doubting whether this is the right place for you. These are valid concerns. For many young talents, if you are doing something you got great grades for in university, but it does not truly energize you or make you dream of things that you are willing to sacrifice everything for, then it may be that you have not found the right job for you ... yet. Before you throw in the towel or make a rash move however (or continue to ignore your own needs!) I invite you to try this little experiment:

Take some time (30 minutes) to have a mini-brainstorm with your Self, to find out how you can sync your way of working in your current job to your Self's desire for a more natural energy way of working. Find out if you can get more freedom to be your Self than you may currently assume you have, at work. A simple method that I use in coaching is to explore through questions.

A key question to start off with is to consider what the difference is for you, between what you are good at, and where your passion lies? These are very often two different things -- otherwise you would not have this nagging feeling inside. This is your passion, your Self indicating that something's out of whack.

For example, if you are creative but are also good at accounting, and you have always heard from authority figures in your life that you are better off choosing accounting because it is more 'secure', then you are potentially putting away a big creative part of yourself that wants to take more risks. This may come back to haunt you later in your career, because you will have passed up opportunities to find or create a job or business for yourself that combines the best of both your sets of talents.

So you can ask your Self:
* how much have you been 'trained' or even 'programmed' to do your current job, in a certain mode of working, or way of thinking?

* what are things that cause you to loose energy, what things make you feel resistance, what are tasks you'd rather never have to do again? With this list in hand, see how you can reduce the impact of this resistance on yourself and your environment, so that you say time and keep your motivation high at work. If you have doing presentations there are just as many others who love it -- how can you work together to get over your stagefright (or whatever it is that is blocking you) and how can those people help you actually make the presentations in the meantime?

* what is your authentic way of communicating? Do you need to be direct and honest but you are working in a complex, political and indirect company culture? Do you have a lot a big ideas and visions but you are working in a company that sticks to conservative, known solutions? This is asking for a conflict or burnout. Express yourself and your need to communicate with others in your authentic manner, and see how they react. Not by complaining, simply be stating "My natural tendency is to want to communicate this way.... (describe it as simply as possible.) Is that a style of interaction you can relate to?" You might be amazed how many people will tell you "Yes me to. I am so relieved we can speak to each other in a more open manner than the norm." Once you and your new found buddy are an example, others will follow. This gives you more freedom to be yourself, express yourself and find entirely new connections to people in your job. It also shows your leadership (belief in self).

* what are ways of working that you do effortlessly (write down specific, concrete examples), naturally? For example some people are wizards at organizing. Others at thinking up ideas and communicating them. What do you do, exactly, when you do this? This insight will give you ways of working to use to your advantage, as people will see you are a natural and can appreciate you for that. This may assist you in future to get the kind of work you want, even if it's in another field, because you are naturally great at doing things many other people may have alot of trouble doing.

* what are smart ways to do certain tasks that you have now, with a lot less energy and effort? Sometimes we work too hard, try too hard, and put too much time into perfecting things when really we could make life easier for ourselves. For example, by sharing workload, delegating, getting a mentor to show you quicker ways to move forward, or help from others in trade for assistance back to them in future. 80% of the results should come from 20% of the effort. The rest of your time could be used to create and find your ideal work, picking up hobbies you've ignored (more passion) or just enjoying a bit of breathing space (great for you health).

So remember, if your current job does not give you the kind of energy, passion and growth that you want, you can use this Self-questioning as a way to start to take the space to figure out what your natural Self needs. These are just a few steps -- by no means a complete 'programme' to get you there overnight! But if you start learning to ask yourself these kinds of aware and practical questions, you can then head for your ideal job in the future.

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." - B. Spock

Authentic Leadership is Peanuts

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the 'Peanuts' comic strip.

You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them.
Then straight through, and you'll get the point.
1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is , none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.
These are no second-rate leaders. They are the best in their fields.
But the applause dies.
Awards tarnish.
Achievements are forgotten.
Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:
1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special!!
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier? The lesson:
The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, the highest status or the most awards.
They simply are the ones who are real, and they show that they care.

''Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!"

Leadership and awareness

What does coaching have to do with leadership and awareness?

One of the people I have the priviledge of working with this year is Professor Jack Wood at the IMD (the Institute of Management Development, currently ranked as the #1 Business School in the world by the Economist). Jack recently published findings about what the purpose of coaching is, and what he sees as the potential positive impact of coaching in organisations.

You'll be happy to know that he's confirmed that there's a alot more to coaching than what many a manager may think it is -- that is, getting people to shape up and jump through hoops better, faster or more efficiently in the interest of the business. Coaching can of course benefit your work in a company, and in a role, but it should not be just about performance improvement. If that is the goal, you are better off, in my view, getting training or working with a mentor in the company or under a supervisor who shows you the ropes. Whereas HR managers often assume that the purpose of coaching is to increase a managers’ performance, Jack's survey of participants attending a coaching
session in IMD's Orchestrating Winning Performance programme revealed that this is not what executives want. The top 3 coaching objectives were, by contrast:

- life development – balancing personal and professional roles more effectively

- leadership – developing interpersonal and team leadership skills

- self-awareness – becoming more aware of my shortcomings and growth opportunities as a leader, and understanding the origins and history of my behavior in work and its impact on others.

(for the full article please click here).

Trusting your potential: how does coaching help me to get there?

At Trust Your Potential, we specialise in whole-life approaches to coaching, using tools developed by training institutes like Coaching and Leadership International. We use CLI's Power Coaching® methods, for example, to support young leaders who have a desire to lead a balanced life (developing your mind, your body and your spirit or inner power, not just your intellect or business accumen). It's the fastest way I've found as a coach, to help young people past often debilitating expectations of others, and their own fears, and to sit more comfortably in a fuller form of power in their lives. My coaching is focused on encouraging you to draw on the potential power of BOTH your left brain (logic, intelligence) and the intuitive and creative capability of the heart (your right brain), you tap into both conscious and 'unconscious' or intuitive aspects of your thinking and learn to trust that the most powerful answers, are, in fact, the ones that come from (you guessed it) your heart.

Often solutions stream in or come up as symbols or dreams or images with sounds or feelings, that pass by in a flash. These are the golden keys which you can capture and name, and then look at, in order to discover what they represent to you in relation to your specific challenge or goal. The results I have had with this coach approach so far have been quite amazing, as remarked by the young talent around the world who is doing this coaching with us. Here's what one of a young, high-flying communications manager has say about the process:

"I had a really difficult meeting this afternoon and on the way to the station I had a realization....not about the meeting but about the fact that there was something I could do about it! I was thinking that I definitely had an issue to bring to our next coaching session....and then realized that – just in knowing that I could bring it to our session and give it over to my intuitive mind – I can get a totally different perspective on the problem. It was still a problem, but it suddenly became a problem that I knew I could do something about -- I just don't know what yet, because I haven't done the right brain work yet. I am in my head and my heart's not talking. But I know that once I get to the coaching, I'll learn how to deal with it without too much hammering my head on the table. That makes me trust myself. I think your approach gives professionals not only the tools to deal with deep-seated patterns and issues, but the knowledge that these and any other big issues are surmountable, not inevitable. That creates a certain feeling of peace. And confidence. Which, of course, also helps you get beyond your current issues. It’s a positive feedback cycle : ) Now that is cool."

YES. That's why I am doing this work. I feel that's how coaching should be.

Thanks to the scientific research and the deep intuition that's been integrated into Power Coach® techniques, I've found I can also help young talent physiologically learn how to stimulate their personal "genius thinking". A "genius" typically possesses great intelligence as well as other remarkable abilities, showing exceptional natural capacity, emotional openness, physical ability, creativity and spiritual power (belief in self and one's purpose in life). A genius is capable of producing creative and original work, something that has never been seen or evaluated previously, because they know why they are in this life, in the world (not just what they are doing in their job).

Traits often associated with genius include include strong individuality, imagination, uniqueness, and innovative drive. Most importantly, in my view, however, is that a genius is also a leader -- a leader who is willing to take responsibility for their own negative behaviours, and who can share their genius with others. These leaders are willing to embrace and inspire, in themselves and others, values of humanity that, in every generation and in every phase of life, need to be discovered, nurtured and anchored in every person's life. Values such as: deeper respect, faith, trust, compassion, courage, honesty & forgiveness for self and others. Young leaders who are willing to be coached can
quickly own their 'stuff' can go on to coach others, thereby creating a safe environment for clients, teams, colleagues and also their superiors, to take risks. Because they know they can trust you and you have helped them trust each other. And you can have fun while you're at it! That's why work on your personal values in life and your self-awareness is the foundation -- and not just a sub-topic -- of coaching with me.

Leverage your talent in a time of crisis

It's been a crazy few months. I have been travelling non-stop to clients, which has been great for me, but I have also been concerned with the influx of high potentials who are extremely stressed and needing guidance in these very uncertain times. Clients in the financial sector in particular are fearing for their jobs and worried sick about their futures.

Being a person who believes in the power of positive thinking but also committed to backing this up with action and evidence, I want to share a recent article from the Economist here, which can offer you young talents an altogether more encouraging view of the potential and quality you can bring to your market. It describes how, no matter how bad the world economy gets, the decisive factor in the success of any company is the quality of their people capacity for leadership and management. This article explores the opportunities for skilled leaders in emerging markets.

So grab your chance and explore! Read on...

IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENT MANAGERS

Although some emerging-market firms are very well managed, by and large established multinationals still seem to have the edge. Mr Hout reckons that the expatriate managers now deployed by multinationals in emerging markets are generally of a much higher quality than the "young bucks or
retirement-posting types" they used to send. "They are aggressive, smart, at the heart of their careers. And they tend to be married to more worldly women than management wives used to be."

[assuming they are men?! - Madelon]

That said, the multinationals' management advantage is based more on training and experience of running a large business than on exposure to other countries. Indeed, leading multinationals are reducing their use of expats, and those they do send are often expected to train a local manager as their successor. There is still a striking lack of executives from emerging markets at the top of developed-country multinationals. Even at GE, which is wholeheartedly committed to emerging markets, around 180 of the top 200 managers are still Americans. "The single biggest challenge facing Western multinationals is the lack of emerging-market experience in their senior ranks," says Mr Ghemawat.

Such companies' boardrooms are even less globalised. According to Clarke Murphy of Russell Reynolds, a recruitment firm, American multinationals now have a "ferocious interest in attracting
non-Americans to the board", but as yet even Europeans are a rarity, let alone directors from emerging markets. The share of non-Americans on the boards of American multinationals is less than 5%. The main problem "is attendance, especially if there is a crisis and the board needs to meet a lot at short notice". Once again, Goldman Sachs seems to have found a clever compromise by appointing Lakshmi Mittal to its board. The Indian steel tycoon is based in London and often visits New York, where the investment bank has its headquarters.

Some European firms are doing slightly better than their American counterparts at internationalising their boards. Nokia recently appointed Lalita Gupte, an Indian banker who had just retired from ICICI bank, one of the world's most innovative practitioners of bottom-of-the-pyramid finance. And leading British companies have lots of foreigners in their executive suites and boardrooms.

Moreover, multinationals have great trouble retaining the managers they do have in emerging markets, says Mr Hout. "Well-trained, good, honest people are scarce in emerging markets. Multinationals are better at training these people than emerging-market companies, which prefer
to poach them once they are trained."

The founders of emerging-market firms are often impressive, but such firms typically lack the depth of management talent of old multinationals, says Mr Hout. The best students he has taught have typically worked for developed-country multinationals.

See the full article with graphics and related items at http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12080723&subjectID=423172&fsrc=nwl

Core values and corporate community

During a leadership program that I was coaching on this past week, it struck me that in corporations, where thousands of young talents like yourselves are making their way, there is not enough to attention to the things that can give meaning in our lives. One of those things is being willing and able to create and really connect with a community. We may all try hard on an individual basis, to be healthy, successful, enlightened, creative, but it kind of falls into nothingness if we have no one to express our 'Selves' with, especially at work. It's like that saying "To have joy we must share it." We need caring relations with others, real connection in a group that is there for you and which stands for a way of living or being in the world that makes you feel good, in the deepest layers of your body, mind and spirit.

In my coaching work with young executives, I notice time and again how they lead groups (teams) who work together all day, for years, but that the individuals, when asked behind the scenes, feel no real connection to their team mates. They tolerate one another, and live in isolation and disconnection, suffering from lack of attention from and for others. Many feel that in their work environment, there are few people they can trust. Work pressure causes them, over the years, to lose the few friends in their private lives who they could fall back on. They live somewhere but have no time to 'give back' to their neighbourhood because of their focus on work. Most of these people have lost -- or never really connected with -- a community. They can't name other people who could be their mentor, supporter, muse or inspiraiton, to guide them along the way.

This is very tragic. As a coach, I often ask myself how we can slow down our fast-moving, stressed out working pace enough, just to allow ourselves to reconnect with a heart-felt and healthy community -- a community that pays attention and nurtures trust so that our basic human needs can be met. We can just be so busy, struggling ever upwards on a 'career' track, striving for more money, more success. This is a very admirable thing, but when we no longer ask ourselves what the personal cost is of having no time for anything but keeping up the unquestioned status quo, using 'divide and conquer' tactics to jump ahead or hold to 'win' then we drop into a destructive that, as I have seen, can have a huge impact on yourself and on others around you.

In private conversations, the most 'successful' CEOs, CFOs, COOs etc, who make millions a year, whom everyone looks up to, suddenly realise they have no idea how they got stuck in their role, and they don't know how to get off the 'mountain'. Worse, they don't have a clue where to go to next. They crave connection to the world outside the office; they miss having time to breathe fresh air, to play with children, to just be happy. If we think about an exec's work day -- averaging 10-12 hours at the office or on the road for business, often 6 days a week -- we can get sense of how easily we can lose the sense of belonging, and what we could call "loving kindness".

So how can we get back? Can we reverse our disconnected situation and reconnect again into a community that has meaning for us without losing everything we've worked so hard for? I believe it is possible, and that things will change as a result, and that the change is for the better. The first step is to really look at how we can start to live our lives not based solely on Fear and Ambition but on values that feed you personally, like Respect, Patience, Self-love... You could also lie in bed a minute longer before getting up each morning, and ask yourself "What intention am I waking up with this morning? To be joyful? To be courageous? How am I going to show that, live that with other people today?"

This is an important step, before your commit to a community. This is because each community has specific values; don't jump into some group just because you are scared and lonely, only to discover that you don't belong there...

Once you have got back to your 'Self', and you pick a moment to check in with yourself every day and sense which values are important to you, you could then think about what you want in a community. You may ask: "What is my one, core value in life? Is it Integrity? Power? Love? Beauty? What does that mean for me, exactly?" Once you can express this core value, then other people (not everyone, probably a few, select people) can connect with you and appreciate your vision on this value. These people could come from anywhere, and at work they could be in any function, at any rank, they could be completely different from people you usually hang out with. These are the potential members of your most important, life-long community. People come an go, but values are eternal to humanity. So you can live them. And as you go out together with others to find out how to live your core value, you can create the most impact on the world and help eachother through more difficult stuff in life than you'd ever imagine.

How to be happy at work?

In studies done on happiness at work, done around the world, show results are quite scary: Most people don't really like their jobs, they see work as a 4 letter word but they need to bring home the bacon. They are not happy at work but they just grin and bear it anyway.

Even more so, many countries generally are not very happy, the whole society we may live in may suffer from a low-happiness quotient. Eric Weiner -- a particularly grumpy but also very funny writer for the NPR (USA), has sought for the happiest places in the world in his new book "The Geography of Bliss". He found that we all have our ideas about how to be happy in life, but noone really has the answers. During his travels he discovered some great little secrets to happiness, which I won't divulge here (it's too much fun to read the book!) but I still was left with one big question:

Regardless of our nationality, religion, country of residence, or creed, why is that at a personal level, it so difficult for so many of us to translate our ideas about happiness into our daily experience in the workplace? Why do so many of us hate our jobs? and experience so much stress?

One possible way to explore this question is to look at what makes us particularly human: our beliefs, assumptions and perceptions, and our imagination. For today, let's take a look at the first one: beliefs. We often walk around with a whole set of ideas about how we should live our lives, which contain what can be called a belief system. A belief system can be picked up from your family or upbringing, your education or workplace. Belief systems, more often than not, are a way to programme your mind to protect yourself from undesirable influences from outside. Sadly, most beliefs you hear from people are essentially formulated in the negative, although most people are not aware of this.

We might believe, for example, that we should never let people walk all over us. We must defend our positions, our status and our power in the workplace. The negative language used here is quite clear -- never, walk all over, defend. What happens when we use this kind of language inside ourselves is that what we actually latch onto in our (subconscious) mind and heart is the opposite: I always let anyone walk all over me. I am weak. I can't stand up to people.

This is where knowing how to become aware of your belief systems, and then rewriting them one by one into positive, personal, and purposeful language is essential as a first step to creating a less stressful and happier sense of being in the workplace. You could write down your negative beliefs, such as the one I heard recently which was that "My boss does not care me as an employee, he is only here to get me to work harder for less money." You can then pick the sentence apart and turn each negative term into a positive. If you take a moment to reword this sentence as a positive belief system, such as: "I, Sally, am now...(doing something or showing some positive attitude), which makes my relationship with my Boss one of trust and respect. As a result I enjoy work and feel good about going in every day." Rewrite the belief system as if you are already in the future, already doing and achieving what it is you desire (happiness at work).

Beliefs systems are powerful words we can read to ourselves and say out loud as a reminder. It gives your busy mind a rest and resets the focus from the negative to the positive. They remind us that if we practice every day to think differently, we also create a positive difference in our daily work lives. This immediately benefits others, as well.

However, they are not much use if you don't logically agree with what you are envisioning! That's why you need to work on letting go of the stress that you may have around your Boss, your job, and underlying issues like the feeling that you are getting paid less that what you think you may deserve. This is where specific coaching on your real issues and goals can be very helpful; it keeps you on task and you can rise above a situation in which you may end up 'spinning in circles in your own mind'. You break down the big issue (hate my job, hate my Boss), into small parts and asking yourself: what is it that is making me feel this way? Then ask yourself: what is it that I am learning from this?

As you and your coach work out ways to find a new (positive) perspectives on underlying issues, you can make your new belief statement 'real'. Finally, you can ask yourself: I am in this position, in this job for a reason. How am I benefitting from staying here in many ways, so how can I make my new belief system real?

Enjoy taking action on this. If you would like to explore how to do this step by step, drop me an email!

More on the other aspects in my next posting. Sunny greetings from Switzerland.
-- Madelon

Self Realisation

In these balmy summer weeks it is great to remember that it is not always helpful to work so hard at everything, including self-development. There are seasons to move, and seasons to rest. This is the time to take a break and just let all your experiences from the past months sink in.

"A man who is seeking for realisation is not only going round searching for his spectacles without realising that they are on his nose all the time, but also were he not actually looking through them he would not be able to see what he is looking for" Wei Wu Wei

A book I am reading right now by Dr. Ginny Whitelaw that I would like to recommend, for when you do start moving again, is "Move to Greatness"

Move to Greatness maps the way through four profound patterns of personality that interlink mind, body, and behavior. You'll learn what natural strengths you can leverage, and how to uncover the pattern that moves you beyond previous limits. Moving yourself to greatness, you'll also learn how to deeply improve your relationships, communication, ways of managing conflict, and the teams and organizations you're a part of. Move to Greatness shows you how you can escape the pitfalls of partial leadership and literally move to the greatness of being wholly effective and better balanced.

It was a pleasure to meet Ginny in my colleague Patricia Aert's Presence workshop after Ginny delivered a keynote address at the ECC ICF Coaching conference, which I co-organized in Geneva, Switzerland on June 26-28th, 2008.

Enjoy.

Out of the box

This week I had the pleasure of working in an inspiring place called Dialogues House, a creative and conversational space for entrepreneurs in Amsterdam. As I flew in for the strategy sessions I was to guide with a management team, I thought about how easy it seems to put people in a funky coloured playroom, bring in alot of post-its and markers and then expect them to start thinking out of the box and transforming they way they work, just because they are in a fun environment sharing ideas. Well, certainly this helps alot, but what about the boxes inside our heads? The ones we put ourselves in. Those big 2 cubic meter onces that we don't particularly like opening up to others?

I notice time and again in coaching that we all stop ourselves from sharing, creating a block in communication as we slam the lid of our box shut on people's fingers when they start asking, "hey, what's this? is this a hidden side of you that I'm seeing?" It's not easy to come out and show who you are. But as Loa Tsu said, "If I let go of who I am, I can become what I might be".

It is this inner motivation that drives us out from under our cardboard shacks, seeking a better way to live, even though we fear that we won't have anywhere to run back to and hide if the world turns out to be too hard to handle. Once we start hanging out over the edge of our box and looking round a bit, we see the sorry state our old box is in and are willing to adjust the design of it slightly to give ourselves more breathing space.

Are you driving around like a garbage truck?

Thanks to Bestka K-Burr MCC from Coaching and Leadership International and author Lynn Stevenson CPC, a colleague who also trained as a coach at CLI, for sharing this story and the 'law' with me.


The Law of the Garbage Truck
I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly. So I asked "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!" This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck'.

The taxi driver explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake in the morning with regrets, so … wave and smile!

There's a positive principle or 'universal law of human behaviour' behind this story, which is simply:

"Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't."

Why try to reach the peak

I am reading Jamie Andrew's amazing book "Life and Limb" about his story of tragedy and survival as a mountain climber. After seeing him in person presenting live today to a large audience, I know this is a person who truly trusts his potential. He stood there, having lost both hands and feet to the cold, telling us about how he is climbing up mountains again, despite his tragedy. What a great man!

His story reminds me of another, which I found a while back, which I want to share with you.

The Climb

Two men traveled the world seeking the most extreme challenges and adventures. After many years of shared challenges, they decided to climb what was considered the most dangerous mountain in the world. Up until that day, no men had ever completed the gigantic climb. Most men would not even dare to try.

They arrived at the mountain’s base in good spirits and with a clear objective in their minds: reach the summit. However, the task was not going to be as simple as many other challenges they had previously faced: it was a unique setting, which would test their nature, courage and put on the line everything they had achieved so far (even possibly their lives).

The climb began. A quarter through the journey, the cold wind and snowy conditions made them think twice about what they were doing. They looked at each other, but did not speak a word and with the slightest nod, mutually agreed to keep going. As they progressed, the conditions got worse and one suggested, for the first time in their joint adventures, that perhaps they should retreat to avoid further danger. His request was denied and they kept going. Half-way between the base and the summit of the mountain, the same man suggested another retreat, with the argument that the mountain was simply too long and too dangerous to be conquered by the two of them. His request was again denied.

Three-quarters of the way, both adventurers were overwhelmed by the dreadful climbing conditions and as a matter of survival, had to retreat to base camp. When they arrived at the camp, the adamant climber said: “We’ll go again tomorrow”. Dazzled, the other climber asked him why, considering they had failed as he had suggested, and that the mountain proved too big and too challenging a task. He replied: “We’ll see about that”.

The next day, they tried again and once more, had to retreat in order to survive. Each next day was followed by another attempt: one man driven by an unblemished determination to reach the summit; another with a clear resolve not to abandon his friend.

Three weeks later, the bewildered man could not derive further motivation and posed the question he had been longing to ask: “Why do you keep trying it? Can’t you see the mountain is too big for you, for me, or for anyone else?” The other man replied: “Yes, I agree the mountain is too big”. Puzzled and rather satisfied with the prospect of accepted failure, the friend responded: “So why are we still here? Why do we keep trying if we are certain to fail?!”

With a smile on his face, the man replied: “The mountain is already as big as it will ever get. You and me, however; we’re still growing.”

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” (Sir Edmund Hillary, part of the first expedition to reach the top of Mount Everest)

Let me ask you: Why do you bother reaching for that peak, even though it seems impossible? Let me know your inspiration.

Meet Madelon

Where else can I meet Madelon?
Madelon is a coach for business schools like IMD (Institute for Management Development), De Baak and the Media Academy. She is a partner in Humanshareware, an innovation consultancy, a guest lecturer at colleges, academies and universities, and a founding member of the new Gen Y awareness network, Potential Buddha.

Talent quizzical 1

How do others value my talent?
It's a jungle out there. Check out this audio interview by Economist.com (May 2008) as it describes what the global economic downturn can mean for top talent like yourself. Will you keep your job? Are you in the top 20%?

What is my true talent?
Wondering what you're best at? Take a free test online to find out a few key talents. This is fun, but serious insight comes when you do a more in-depth profile like DISC or Birkman tests, and start working with a coach.

Feel like you got hit by a truck?

Working with others can be intensive, especially if you're advising people who feel 'stuck' or 'lost' or even burned out. If you are exhausted after meetings with people, then you may not taking care of your energy. Our physical energy is the key to staying in balance; cherish and protect it no matter what. Meditation and yoga is all about rejuvenation and channeling energy in your body. But what if you are not standing on your head and chanting OM, but sitting with a disappointed person in a grey office room, analysing a collapsing business situation? At moments like this, you should become supremely aware of yourself:

What is happening with your energy right now? Do you feel like doing back flips on the beach or do you feel like you got hit by a truck? Since yesterday afternoon?

How your body feels during the day is a precise indicator of how you are managing your precious energy. If you feel tired most of the time at work, you may have let other people come into your personal space, your private energy field too much, causing vitality to stream out of you in a one-way drain. It's all too easy to lose yourself by giving all your energy to another person. After all, we all want to (or feel we should) help others.

So what if energy is being sucked out of you too fast?

Well, you might burn out, too. It's as simple as that. Protect your energy by imagining you are in a cocoon of light, or wearing a veil, or there's a waterfall running over your head to wash away negative energy you may be absorbing from others. Be creative; whatever works for you! It takes only a few seconds to do this, and others do not even have to notice. Just close your eyes for a second and take a deep breath. Feel the power of your own energy body. By doing this you can be with what is happening in the room without coming out feeling like you got hit by a truck.

I believe all wisdom comes from inside you. Coaching helps to shape it in a way that suits you best.
Questions? Post your reply in this blog!